Sigma Alpha Iota

PAN PIPES Winter 2019 13 John Keller Above, composite image of the two engraved sides of the baton and the full-length image. At left, IAML-Leipzig attendees meet the baton onstage after the presentation of the paper, July 26, 2018. WAGNER'S BATON secretly rehearsed a 15-member ensemble and lined them up on the stairs outside her bedroom to perform. Cosima's diary description of the Christmas morning performance became the basis for this o-repeated legend from Wagner's life—a story symbolizing love of wife and family. e Wagners wanted a memorial of this special day and sent away the baton that Wagner used for the performance to be engraved. Six weeks later, on February 2 of 1871, Cosima noted parenthetically in her diary: "Arrival of the engraved conductor's baton used for the Idyll." e couple had a souvenir of the performance. It was Wagner's intention that the Idyll remain a private composition; Cosima was deeply saddened when, some years later, financial pressures led to the publication of the intimate birthday gi under a new title: Siegfried Idyll. e Wagners moved from Tribschen to Bayreuth in 1872 and began to build the Festspielhaus, an auditorium designed specifically for the performance of Wagner's music dramas. King Ludwig the Second of Bavaria enabled the family to build a home in Bayreuth, which was christened 'Wahnfried' and hallowed with Wagner's inscription: Here where my delusions (Wahn) have found peace (Fried), let this place be named Wahnfried. In 1883 Richard Wagner suffered a heart attack and died at the age of 70, leaving Cosima to take over the directorship of the Bayreuth festival—a summer festival of Wagner's music— and to guide five children to adulthood. She maintained the house as a virtual shrine to Wagner and his genius; even his spectacles stayed where he had always le them. In 1915 her son Siegfried, age 46, married the 18-year- old English orphan, Winifred Williams. Cosima lived to the age of 92, dying in 1930; Siegfried died just months aer his mother. e family legacy became Winifred's responsibility. Mother of four and widow of Siegfried, Winifred Wagner plays a crucial role in the next chapter of the baton story. Like Cosima before her, she held up the flame of Wagner's music, directing the summer festival in Bayreuth, protecting the archives of scores, correspondence and memorabilia, and preserving the house and grounds of Wahnfried. In the 1920s the family had befriended a young, charismatic politician, Adolf Hitler, who was enamored of Wagner's music and philosophical writings. Bayreuth evolved as a cultural center of Germany, and the town, along with Wagner's music, became important to the ird Reich as a symbol of German identity. Hitler visited Bayreuth regularly and stayed with the family on their property at Wahnfried. (Winifred did not keep a diary, but her memories and impressions of the war years were recorded in an extended video documentary made by Hans-Jürgen Syberberg in 1976.) While bombs were falling elsewhere in Germany during WWII, Bayreuth seemed safe, because it was not a political or military center. But it was an emblematic heart of Germany, and in early April 1945, the bombers aimed their sights at this vital target. Winifred had prepared for this possibility by placing archival material and significant documents in fire-proof cabinets. She stored some valuable items in the basement of the local hospital and sent her son Wieland and his family to their house at Lake Constance, entrusting him with the score of Tristan und Isolde and the master's correspondence with Liszt. As the bombers approached Bayreuth on April 5, 1945, Winifred took shelter in the basement of the Siegfriedhaus, next to Wahnfried. When she emerged aer the air-raid, she noted that the entire back wing of the mansion had been destroyed. Her second son, Wolfgang, began shoring up the house while Winifred accompanied his wife Ellen (who was expecting a baby) to their retreat in the mountains. e American bombers continued their attacks and Ellen went into labor. Winifred escaped into the woods with her newborn granddaughter as American troops arrived in Bayreuth. On April 14, 1945 when a division of the American Army entered Bayreuth to clear it, the residents displayed white flags of surrender from the buildings. One young officer, Captain Robert Pearson, was with the troops that day and years later swapped war stories with his friend and colleague Dr. Philip Smith, my music- loving father. One anecdote was particularly fascinating to my dad, and he persuaded Bob to share the details with me. In the mid-1970s, I was an undergraduate at the University of Michigan School of Music, visiting my parents during a holiday break. ere was something exceptional my father wanted me to see, so we walked over to Bob Pearson's place, just down the street. Dr. Pearson kept some valuables locked in a safe in his front room. He opened the black box, handed me an odd-looking piece of wood and spoke about his time in Germany at the end of the war. He explained that, aer the bombing of Bayreuth, the troops began moving from house to house, surveying the damage, searching for survivors and those who might be hiding from the Americans. When they got to the big mansion, they noted it was only partially destroyed and went upstairs to see if anyone was still in the building. e soldiers, upon finding SS officers' uniforms in an upstairs closet, began ransacking the premises – throwing goods and furniture out into the rubble. Captain Pearson came along and quieted the mayhem, reminding the men of their duty to keep the peace, complete their assignment, and not participate in such shenanigans. When calm was restored and the troops were on their way to the next property, Pearson bent down, picked up the shiny slender stick and slipped it into the inner pocket of his jacket. He explained to me that this scene had played out at the home of the composer, Richard

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